But with more foreign universities especially from UK and Australia marketing aggressively in this part of the world, coupled with an ever-increasing group of O/A level achievers, not to mention the deteriorating condition of the country, more and more people are opting to study abroad.

Zainab appears to be pulling the right strings, having been interviewed by Dawn for their Sunday magazine and now even contributing how-to articles to the same. With these effective strategies, she’s fast becoming an established brand. A B.A in Comparative Literature, she also teaches General English at South Shore School of A-Level Studies and a councilor at British Overseas School.

She must have a huge fan following by now considering that Dawn has given her ample coverage and she would do well to collect testimonials and put all of them in her profile online. But why does she need to go to all the trouble of asking her clients for recommendations, and then compiling them in her online profile when she’s already an established brand?

Simply because of this:

”Publicity is a double-edged sword that can slice through the very person it has promoted. Besides, the higher the profile gets, the heavier the burden one is compelled to carry. “

Shobha De

What follows is the recount of the experience one of her customers had with her when he was applying for the Fullbright Scholarship:

“The Fulbright ad mentioned Ms. Sabrina as the person to contact for guidance at United States Education Foundation. When I contacted her, she referred me to Ms. Zainab Khan. Since Ms. Sabrina came across as a credible and trustworthy person, I relied on her recommendation and set up a meeting with Ms. Khan. I called her up and we agreed to meet at Café Fresh the following Sunday. She told me up front that this one session was going to be free and from then on she will charge Rs. 1,000 per session.

She further said that on an average it takes about 15 sessions to churn out an excellent application for scholarship, without knowing what my progress was by then. At the rate she was charging, that would amount to a staggering Rs. 15,000. It was too expensive for me as I had already doled out almost Rs. 30,000 on TOEFL and GRE. I told her that was way over my budget and besides, I didn’t need the full package since I had already done the bulk of the work (Excellent GRE and TOEFL score as well as published work) and only needed help with the essay and personal statement. I also gave her my complete profile on the spot. She flipped through it in few seconds and declared that yes I had done 70% of the work and would require only 5 or 6 sessions which would comprise of writing request for references, resume, essay and personal statement.

I again reiterated that I only need help with the essay and personal statement and that this ought to be covered in 4-5 sessions. She reluctantly agreed at that time when she saw I was having second thoughts about acquiring her services. The truth of the matter is, there wasn’t much I could do other than hire her since only two weeks were left for the submission of application and she had me convinced that she was the right person to help me, boasting of how she had got people into Ivy League colleges. In this session I also found that she had very little understanding of Fulbright Scholarship, its process and requirements. Nevertheless, it was not pertinent as I believed I was hiring her for essays.

However, when we met for the first paid session, she was back to her earlier stance. I gave in, thinking how long would it take for something as basic as writing a request for recommendation. I was wrong.

She made me write like a child word by word the darn request, which stretched for the entire Rs.1,000 hour. Now she may have worked for ultra-rich kids for whom a thousand bucks is nothing more than a single rupee. But for someone like me who belongs to a middle class and has to earn his living the hard way, it’s a huge amount to be spending on a single hour especially when that hour is literally going to waste. I told her numerous times that references wasn’t an issue for me since the people from whom I was going to get it from were close to me and they certainly didn’t need a formal request from me.

But she kept at it. So much so that even half hour of the next session was diligently devoted to this request. Another Rs.500 down the drain.

The next half hour was spent on resume. Even here, she didn’t tell me anything extraordinary. It was basically rearranging the different elements of the resume, that I had diligently built over a period of time, which I easily could have done myself in fifteen minute had she just given me the format which she was holding in her hand. But she refused to do so, claiming that I would copy it all. Duh.

The entire next session was again spent on resume. Three sessions and Rs.3,000 later I had learnt nothing that would help me complete the application. Three sessions, no essays so far. The deadline was getting nearer. I was on the verge of a breakdown.

She finally saw my desperation and called for a 20 minute session which she categorically said was free. We again met at Café Fresh (I was beginning to hate that place) and in that 20 minutes she dropped another bombshell. She said we were on the verge of wrapping up the session and that we need not even meet. I would write the essay and personal statement myself and email it to her and the ensuing discussions would be telephonic. I was completely lost by now.

Right from the beginning she had led me to believe that she would be the one writing the essay and personal statement based on my feedback. No, she hadn’t directly said it but she had implied it all along. And since the time was passing by fast and she was not on the proximity of the reasons I agreed to pay her, this belief got stronger. And now at this critical point she was telling me I had to write it myself. If it was me going to be doing it, why didn’t she just give me the guidelines and let me do it when there was ample time instead of leading me on to the eleventh hour? She knew exactly what my deadline was.

I was on the edge now. I wrote my essay and personal statement myself based on the few guidelines she finally did give me, then called in a friend to polish them. After we both had spent almost four hours fine-tuning the essay and personal statement, I emailed first the personal statement to her and called her to let her know. I was online the whole time, and it took her no more than 20 minutes (remember this was being counted as a Rs.1000 hour session) to ‘edit’ it and send it back to me. The same thing happened with the essay. Within 20 minutes she was done with it. The only thing she did edit was cut short the length of the essay by removing some parts. That’s it. No grammatical check, no nothing.

She called this time asking about the money. In the beginning, she had demanded Rs. 5,000 in advance which I had given it to her. Now only Rs. 1000 was remaining since one session was free. However, when I did go to give this amount, she demanded Rs.2000 counting even the free session. When I reminded her that one of the session was declared free by herself, she just stared at me with growned face. I finally paid all that she demanded, but it was a truly harrowing experience for me and I would advise anyone aspiring to hire the services of these so-called consultants to first check with their previous customers before spending a fortune on their service. A few hours worth of search on the internet would in fact be more fruitful than hiring them.”

Before you decide that maybe this customer was ignorant and refused to acknowledge his weaknesses which Ms. Khan tried her best to correct, this guy is an IBA graduate in addition to being a computer engineer. What’s more, he’s working in an MNC and his articles have been published in the business pages of Dawn and Business Recorder. In short he’s no muck with the pen.

So what can we deduce from this narrative which does sound like an ordeal:

Under promise, Over-deliver, the brand mantra devised by Tom Peters  has been and will always be the best and the shortest possible way to make your brand go from obscurity to popularity and then on to greatness, irrespective of whether that brand is a person, an event or an object. And yet how many brands today are following this simple rule? Some do follow it initially until they attain a certain level of success after which they resort to the reverse of it: Over-promise but under-deliver. This incident happens to be one such case.

With power and in this case popularity comes responsibility, and with her customer base growing, Zainab Khan will have to ensure that no customer of hers gets agitated enough to start a negative word of mouth campaign against her. If she feels that someone is not going to be satisfied with her services at the outset, she should avoid taking him or her as a client altogether. And never underestimate a single customer, even if he appears to be a loner. In the social-media driven world there’s no such thing as a reclusive person. Your reputation can be blown to pieces by even a non-entity on the internet.

In fact these oft-ignored rules ought to be followed by anyone and everyone who’s building a personal brand based on his or her services. In today’s wired world where not the customer but Social Media is always right, you need to be extra vigilant of what the networked realm is saying about you.

Building powerful profiles on the social networks including facebook, linkedin, twitter and of course a blog, is not a luxury but a necessity. And then loading these profiles with testimonials and recommendations is a must.

No matter how careful you are, there are always going to be a few people dissatisfied with your service. So once they launch a venomous attack on your credibility online, the best way to counter it would be the afore-mentioned strategy. And if you have a blog you can even respond to the allegations directly giving your version of the events. And if you really did mess up, the best thing you can do would be to simply apologize to the aggrieved party online.

Whatever you do, just remember this simple rule of thumb by Kevin Roberts, the CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi from his best-seller LoveMarks:

Jealously guard your reputation:

Built over a lifetime. Destroyed in an instant. Consumers today are ruthless if you let them down. So don’t.

No related posts.

So one fine day, we decided to test Ufone’s brand promise and not surprisingly, Ufone fell way short of expectations, even more so than those telecoms who don’t claim to provide good service.

Here’s what happened:

The most basic package Ufone is offering is for Rs.150 with the option to add the bells and whistles later on. In addition to that, it had launched a subdued version of mobile+connection packages that are so common in the Western market. Currently it has discontinued that package but is still offering the mobile at only Rs.1200.

The only catch: you can’t run the mobile on any other service. So you have to invariably buy an Ufone connection.

Of course you can unlock the code from one of those mobile specialists in the mobile market akin to what people do with the ones brought from abroad, but the cost of this ‘bare-minimum’ mobile from Huawei doesn’t justify going to all this trouble.

Back to the story, I bought one of these Huawei Ufone sets along with a Ufone connection for Rs.1350 from their franchise in Dhoraji. Now this was my first interaction with the Ufone people, and I was met by two sullen fellows who looked even more crestfallen to see me approach them. After buying the package, I asked the guy who was tending to me to activate the sim for me, he curtly replied that I should do it myself by calling 789 from the cell. For some reason, I put off activating the SIM at the franchise and instead tried to do it later on at home. Little did I know that this small action would lead to tortuorous consequences later on.

Now their activation procedure requires you to confirm your CNIC number although you have already submitted a copy of the original CNIC as well as shown the original one to the customer rep.  Calling that 789 number is an ordeal in itself. I called five times the first time before I got through to a CSR.

When I gave my CNIC details, the guy at the other end told me that I need to take my original CNIC to one of their customer service centers for verification as my CNIC had insufficient details. As a consumer, this didn’t amuse at all as I had deliberately bought the connection from an obscure franchise to avoid the hassle of a company-owned customer service centre which is always flooded with people, especially that of Ufone.

So, I asked the guy who had dropped the bombshell on me that why should I again go and show my CNIC when I had already done that. If I hadn’t shown my original CNIC, how the heck did I get the connection in the first place?

The poor chap had no answer to my demands, he just kept repeating the same line which he had delivered previously parrot style albeit with rising crescendo, showing that he was getting angry himself. Seeing that I was getting nowhere, I hung up.

I then tried calling the number again in the hope that maybe that rep was a newbie and didn’t know what was wrong and maybe this time I would be able to get in touch with an experienced one. So I called after two hours.

This time I couldn’t get through even after five tries. Tried the next day at 7am in the morning, 12.30 pm, 2.15 pm, 4.30 pm and finally at 5.50 pm when I finally got through for the second time.

All in all it had taken a whopping 17 tries to get in touch with a rep. Then just as I was telling my CNIC no. to the guy, the line dropped.

Can you believe that? The line dropped when I had finally struck gold after 17 tries!

In utter dismay I tried one more time, and this time got through on the first try. Again I gave my CNIC number but unfortunately the response was the same. Insufficient details on the CNIC data gathered from NADRA and that I had to visit the customer service centre myself with the original CNIC.

The centre closes at 6pm and since I had spent the entire day trying to reach their rep on phone, it was closing time and I had to wait another day to activate the connection.

Next day I did visit the centre at 2.30pm. My turn came at 2.50pm, majority of which time was spent standing since there wasn’t sufficient seating arrangement.

This time around I came across a feisty lady for a service rep. She wasn’t impolite or anything, it’s just that her persona didn’t match that of a customer rep. You got the feeling that one false move you made and she would have devoured you right then and there. The way she was bossing around her male colleagues, she ought to have been their team leader instead of dealing with the customers.

But the bottom-line is I got out of there unscathed with the lady finally resolving my problem after getting me to sign some more signatures along with even more thumb impressions.

I asked her why did I have to go through all this trouble, and she explained that there was some ‘fire’ at one of their centres which curtailed their ability to extract complete data for the NIC. This she said was also the reason for lack of response at the UAN number.

Whether this is true or not is not clear, but in any case the customers should have been informed of this development. Good companies even when going for unscheduled maintenance let the customers know and apologize in advance. This is the bare minimum requirement to be deemed as a good customer service provider. And Ufone is proclaiming to be the ultimate in customer service.

So what does this story tell us? Simply that the brand essence of any brand is determined by the perception in the mind of the consumer and not necessarily by what the custodians of that brand are projecting it to be. Sure that projection can become the brand essence if it is consistently effective over a long period of time. Think BMW. Think Caterpillar.  Think Dalda  Think Hamdard. It took ages for these brands to create a desired essence in the consumer’s mind.

So what’s the brand essence of Ufone? Definitely not customer service, they fail at this brand promise of theirs miserably. Only Zong fares worse at this.

The real brand essence of Ufone as perceived by the consumer is that of a youth-oriented brand that comes up with the most cost-effective and unique packages and conveys them in a humorous undertone.

You can argue that Zong has the cheapest offerings but it doesn’t. The connection fee for Ufone is Rs.150 while for Zong it is Rs.300. On top of that, Ufone is the only provider that is offering service cum mobiles in the Pakistani market and that also dirt cheap. That’s the bottom line and the consumer knows it well, hence the brand essence.

So what can Ufone do about this yawning gap? Stop projecting itself as a custodian of the perfect customer service by scrapping the ten commandments. (The funny thing is, these service commandments are not even on their website. They can only be seen at their outlets in the form of a huge poster hugging one of the walls.)

Yes it can continue to use these mantras internally to ensure that its employees don’t wander too far away from providing good service, but don’t advertise this fact.

Then raise the level of its customer service just a few notches up. It doesn’t need to compete with the likes of Telenor and Mobilink on this parameter because it’s definitely not Ufone’s forte. The thing is Ufone can get away with average customer service if it continues to hammer on its current positioning of unique and cost-effective packages. Instead of offering Blackberry packages to no use, it ought to upgrade its basic connection+mobile packages on the Western market model.

Right now it’s offering the most basic cellphone at Rs.1200. It should introduce better models, maybe even have a brand alliance with Nokia to give those mobiles along with the connection and of course free airtime.

How about a Nokia 5230 customized for Ufone and 150 free minutes for let’s say Rs.14,000?

Or how about a Samsung Corby Pro for approximately Rs. 13,000?

Consumers are increasingly being wooed by the cellphone manufacturers to embrace the touch-screen category and Ufone ought to jump on this bandwagon right away.

Throw in mobile insurance as well for good measure and you’ve set the ball rolling for a paradigm shift in the way  consumers in this part of the world buy cellphones and telecom services. And right now, Ufone is in the best position to induce this behavioral change.

No related posts.

Instead of trying to be all things to all people, it kept its focus narrow by staying true to its initial positioning. In fact it boosted that image by coming up with unique and innovative programs like News Weakly by Sami Shah, For the love of Food by Aida Khan, Open Frequency, Late Swing, Cutting it,  Techie Watch,  First Blast, Breakfast at Dawn, No reservations, TalkBack by Wajahat S. Khan and a host of other programs all in English. It hired newscasters who spewed out fluent English in foreign accent so much so that sometimes when you weren’t looking at the screen, you were fooled into believing that it was CNN or BBC. And the person spearheading this stew of foreign accents was Saima Mohsin.

Being part of a large media empire that encompasses all media, it promoted itself aggressively whether it be through the parent company’s radion channel CityFm89, newspaper, magazines Herald and Spider or even through Aurora in which only a couple of months ago the interview of DawnNews CEO Shakeel Masud was published in which he claimed that DawnNews had broken the shackles and had audiences now from even the SEC C and D when initially it had from only SEC A and B. The launch of DawnNews in USA and GCC countries had received overwhelming response and plans were underway to launch in Canada and Europe.  It seemed that the channel could do no wrong.

Then one fine day, it was gone. Just like that. Half of Dawn News’ airing time was suddenly relegated to Urdu language news and programs. In fact the prime time from 7 to 9pm was exclusively devoted to Urdu language. And the justification given for this topsy turvy change was some market research which Dawn claims has shown that there’s more demand for Urdu news channels with creditable news and reporting.

Something’s not right here. If what this market research is inferring is true, then there’s a dearth of good Urdu channels with authentic reporting and the consumer is rejecting them and wanting something credible. In reality the converse is true. Urdu news channels are a dime a dozen and the consumer is hooked on to them with no regard for whether they are reporting right or wrong. In fact people love to devour even the talk shows which are proven to be the least credible with hosts and even guests of dubious standing.

For the sake of argument, let’s say Dawn’s market research was authentic and people are really craving for a spank clean Urdu news channel. Even in that case, what would you do if you were a successful English news channel? Common sense dictates you would come up with another channel as a sub-brand with Urdu programming. Why on earth would you slash your successful programming to make room for something which may or may not succeed? You won’t. Unless you were out of your mind. Or your supposedly successful programs weren’t as successful and this was really what the market research unearthed.

But why weren’t they successful? What was wrong with them? Only those with access to the insights of the market research would know that. One reason could be that a very high barometer for success was set for them, probably benchmarking the Urdu programs for them. If this was the case, then it was a sure recipe for disaster, because going by the sheer size of the Urdu-speaking market, the English one can never even come close to it. Even if you take the Dawn Newspaper, no matter how successful it becomes, it can never be at par with the Urdu newspapers. So that could be one reason.

Another could be the fact that the channel is still in its infancy and is comparing its success rate with that of the market leader GEO. If more time was given to these programs with fewer expectations, maybe they would have pulled through as well. In Malcolm Gladwell’s words, these programs were not allowed to reach their ‘Tipping Point’. How do you determine when the tipping point of a tv programs is going to be reached if at all. There’s no research done to estimate a trend. Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers: The Story of Success says the tipping point for a person to make it is 10,000 hours. After he has spent 10,000 hours practicing whatever it is that he does whether it be sports or software programming, a single small opportunity can tip the fate in his favor big time.

But how much for a tv program to reach the same level of success is not known. To get an idea of how much time and effort may be required to attain the pinnacle of success, here’s an example of a local success story. If you are into listening morning show programs on the FM channels on your way to work or study, then you are probably familiar with the Taza Dum program hosted by Adeel Azhar on FM107. If you haven’t heard, ask around. He has become something of a rock star of radio drive shows, popular even amongst the school-going tweens.

But how did he reach this coveted status? In his own words, he had been doing this show for three and a half years with no luck, he was receiving criticism from all quarters and was just on the verge of quitting when all of a sudden the show shot to success overnight. It’s tipping point had been reached. How much time has Dawn given to its English programs to try to reach the elusive tipping point? Marketing Research can help with a lot of things. This is not one of them. It’s purely a matter of gut instinct of a veteran.

Even those few programs that are still in English are getting affected by the Urdu onslaught. Have you seen No Reservations lately? Ayesha Alam who was doing a good job of presenting in English is having quite a few awkward moments trying to express herself in Urdu. The forced transformation appears to be painful for her.

If you closely look at the day-wise schedule of Dawn’s week, not a single English program is on air from 6pm to 11pm at any day of the week except Sunday which three programs are aired on prime time: No Reservations, Fusion and Beautiful People.

And what’s the story behind Beautiful People? It’s an Indian program with Bollywood celebrity interviews. What was the need for that? Let’s just say that the market research showed that people wanted to see Indian celebrity interviews on a Pakistani channel, wouldn’t it have been better to air something new? The last interview shown was of Deepika Padukone and it was from the time her first movie was released, more than two years old! What’s wrong with Dawn?

The bottom-line is that Dawn’s brand essence is slowly receding. A brand is a single idea in the mind of the consumer. Dawn followed that rule religiously until now. It was following a blue ocean strategy which all brands should aspire to follow, but now it is back to the red ocean strategy, which in layman terms is called the rat race.

“The problem with rat race is that even if you win, you are still a rat.”

DawnNews would do well to take a leaf out of its sister concern CityFM89′s notebook which has carved out a wonderful niche for itself purely by being true to its roots. It recognized that it was a niche brand and worked with respect to that positioning instead of competing head on with the Urdu FM channels like DawnNews is trying to do now.

If you want to know more about what went wrong behind the scenes other than the branding failure, check out these poignant posts on a blog called the Cafe Piyala which has the inside scoop on how Wajahat Khan resigned from Dawn News, how people were either shown the door or pays drastically cut. All that is not discussed here because this site is confined to purely branding issues and not workplace politics.

Dawn News started out as a great brand and it ought to revert to its original brand essence if it is to prosper instead of trying to be something which it is not. Dawn already has had a bitter experience with two failed Urdu projects in the form of Hurriyat and Zulfiqar. If Dawn continues its Urdu transmission, history would simply repeat itself.

No related posts.

Now only if the service worked as it was communicated to the entire nation by a very expensive branding campaign.

There’s no doubt that the local branding endeavors have become quite refined in the last decade. Pakistanis are fast catching up with the Indians in communicating the brand promise. Trouble is, the promise is broken more frequently than the frequency of the loadshedding.

The same is the case with Easypaisa. It’s launch on the 15^th of October was unprecedented in the history of branding in Pakistan. Full front and back-cover print ads in all the major dailies except Dawn. Even in Dawn, a full page ad was present, only that it wasn’t on the front page. That’s impact for you.

And the cost? A full page ad in one of the inside pages of Jang costs a staggering Rs.1.3 million. Now if you want to take the entire front page, which isn’t offered as an option, it must have cost twice that amount. Multiply that by the number of major dailies, both English and Urdu, and you get a staggering Rs.100 million plus thrown away on a single day, and that’s only the print medium. You can safely add another 100 million for the TVC and then you get an idea of how much Telenor is spewing out on this campaign.

Of course it’s their money and they can dish out as much as they want, there’s no law against it. But when the moolah changing hands is in the scale of millions, it does make you wonder why a fraction of this dough couldn’t be spent on streamlining the service before going for an all-out launch?

The reason this thought is probably crossing the mind of any marketer observing telenor’s easypaisa launch is because it has begun to take stingy hits from the consumer almost as soon as the launch. Since the launch was aimed at pretty much the entire nation, the masses influenced by the campaign reacted favorably by opting for the service right away.

Maybe Telenor was not expecting a response of this magnitude or it wasn’t ready at all. In any case, the blogosphere is buzzing with mostly negative to lukewarm reviews of the service. But the most damning verdict has come in the form a letter to the editor in which the irate customer narrates his ordeal that in spite of paying his electricity bill through easypaisa, his electricity connection was disconnected by LESCO.

Although Mr. Sikander Ali, Director of Tameer Bank, tried to control the situation by replying to the letter in the same section right away, the damage had been done.

This was a one-off case. The most common complaint doing the rounds in the blogosphere is that it’s way too expensive. One blogger on Karachi metro blogs narrates he was charged Rs.10 on a mere bill of Rs.140. He says if he has to pay that much, he might as well do so through online means rather than going to all the trouble of physically visiting the easypaisa shop.

So there are basically three issues at work here. One, easypaisa is expensive, two, it is not that convenient, and three, it is not 100% reliable.

No service, no matter how sleek, is 100% fool-proof. There are bound to be problems, some that you cannot even anticipate beforehand. The trick, however, is to find out as many of them as possible by launching a stealth mode instead of coming out with the all-out launch right away.

There’s no evidence that Telenor did take easypaisa for a net practice. That seems to be hurting it badly now.  The fact that a company of this caliber will be able to weather this storm is secondary. The primary consideration ought to be preemptive measures to save the brand not only from the competitor onslaught but the more deadly consumer onslaught as well.

And in this day and age of social media, it is surprisingly easy. All Telenor needed to do was create a Facebook profile for easypaisa augmented by a Twitter account (which it has done now). It should have notified its customers (which is the 2^nd largest customer base after Mobilink) through SMS of its new service, and then just waited to see what happens. No ad. No TVC. No nothing.

Telenor’s investment in this strategy? Zero.  Was this so hard to do? Or because it entailed no money that the brand manager thought it won’t work?

Of course, even then there would have been some negative reviews, but only confined to the blogosphere. And it would definitely have created a buzz in the real world that Telenor was doing something radical in the online world. It would have gone viral and although it wouldn’t have reached the 170 millions souls Telenor claims to have reached with this extravagant campaign, it would have given Telenor enough customers to take its easypaisa for a proper test drive.

Then when it had identified and rectified sufficient bugs in the system, it could have gone for the extravagant campaign which it did. There’s just no way this test-driving strategy would have fared worse than the present one.

So why did Telenor failed to apply such a common sense strategy? Herd mentality. Every brand worth its salt in Pakistan has not dared to come up with a launch strategy that kickstarts from cyberspace and then makes it’s appearance in the physical realm.  There have been  online campaigns, alright, by some of the well-known brands, but they have been far and few in between. And no exclusive product launch.

The best that has been done is what is fashionably referred to as the 360º launch strategy which entails making use of all medium to create both hype and awareness about the brand.

But what’s so bad about creating hype first and then not living upto that hype?

 You break the immutable law of marketing, ‘ Underpromise but over-deliver’. By doing what Telenor has done with Easypaisa, you over-promise but under-deliver.

The best way a business can flourish is to exceed customer expectations. Not many businesses are able to do that, but then not many businesses are successful. And marketing is just a tool to deliver this positioning. The real value addition has to be imbibed into the core of the business, not embedded merely in the branding strategy.

The fledgling Wimax industry in Pakistan is a classic example of these blunders. First to commit the original sin was Wateen which offered the moon to its customers but failed to satisfy them because of technical glitches and constraints which it didn’t address before the formal launch. Then came Infinity whose story was just a tad better than Wateen. Then came Witribe all guns blazing with its launch, its most glaring blunder being, its inability to offer the services in many parts of the city it advertised to be operating. On top of that, potential customers who expressed their interest in the service by registering online as well as at the sales outlets were never contacted to let them know when the service would be available in their area, or even a courteous response.

This pretty much sums up the appalling state of branded service not just in the telecom sector but across different industries in Pakistan. Qubee, the new player in the Wimax domain looks to be the only one with a shrewd strategy, that strategy being to remain low-key until it has streamlined its network substantially. It is aiming to promote its brand only through shopping mall kiosks and its own service outlets spread throughout the city. And of course it has its website to spread the word. In addition to that, it has dedicated one of its reps to surf the online lounges and counter jibes taken at Qubee, an extremely cunning tactic if there ever was one. No other brand has had the common sense to make use of this virtually free tool.

Does this mean Qubee will have no customer problems? Hardly. But at least, they won’t spread like wildfire like the rest of the brands, because Qubee hasn’t as yet come out in the open with clear-cut brand positioning and promise, so what will the customers complain against?

A few problems have already arisen and are well-documented in the blogosphere but if Qubee plays its cards right, it ought to be able to deal with them without them being known too much. That’s the beauty of keeping a low-profile until you get a grip over the simmering issues.

So what’s the verdict? Easypaisa could have been a better launch if it was beta-tested akin to what has been done with Windows 7. And even then, it should have been confined to a few niches rather than going for the masses. To Telenor’s credit, it invited some bloggers to the launch ceremony held on the 16^th of October at PC Karachi, but for some inexplicable reason, it has failed to garner the support of bloggers which it probably expected with the invitation. At best there have just been a few posts mentioning the event not the rave reviews Telenor would have wanted. At worst, well, here’s a trailer of that.

The other thing not in favor of easypaisa that it’s not entirely unique. Settlement of utility bills through mobile banking and the likes already exist. It’s only they are not that well-known and thus confined to a few niches. In fact Nadra’s E-Sahulat fulfills the same purpose for almost free.

Easypaisa on the other hand is geared towards the masses and yet requires a somewhat hefty charge.

Whether Telenor will be able to weather the storm and make its branded service relevant to the masses only time will tell.

Related posts:

1. Jaane Tu…. Ya Jaane Na – An exercise in shrewd branding The movie sky-rocketed to the top of the charts. Why?...

Mind you, the jingle itself isn’t that bad. It was the context in which it was used that made it excruciatingly irritating.  Even when the Lankans hit a single, the Geo jingle would erupt, drowning any comments from the commentators.

In other circumstances, it would even be likable and motivational. In fact when it was used as a complete song with the video of Pakistan team’s heroics, it was the perfect amalgamation. On its own, it’s a brilliant marketing tactic, composing a song with your brand name as its centerpiece. Equally brilliant was the swiftness with which the video of the song was changed to reflect the Pakistani team’s heroics with the bat and bowl in a particular match immediately after the match. This level of flexibility is unheard of in the Pakistani brandscape.

Unfortunately for Geo Super, that’s the only core competency they have. Their excessive advertising is getting on the nerves of their consumers as well. Why? Because sometimes it encroaches upon the live action, making the consumer miss watching some of the bowls bowled. For instance, in the third last over of the T20 Cup Final, the last ball by Udhana was a no-ball. But for some inexplicable reason, the overzealous GEO controller launched a flurry of ads, making the audience all but miss the last ball.

The erosion process is deceptively slow, and by the time, Geo realizes what has happened, all would have been lost. It’s akin to frog-killing technique. Put a frog into hot water and it will instantly jump out. Put the frog in cold water and boil, and the frog would boil to death without a whimper.

While all this is happening, there’s a remarkable opportunity arising for a niche. A channel that can provide uninterrupted programming, especially a sports channel like the South African Super Sports channels. Most of the cable operators for some inexplicable reason block that particular Super Sports channel which is showing an important Pakistan match. The channel Super Sports 2 was broadcasting the T20 Cup but the cable operators  either set that channel at a frequency which was hard to catch or changed the channel altogether.  Whether they are in cahoots with the Geo management is not known. But it appears most likely since Super Sports 2 is back on the cable immediately after the T20 Cup.

Of course a channel with no or minimal ads would require to generate revenue from other sources like subscription-based viewing. Die-hard fans would certainly opt for this option.

Geo’s strategy has always been to inundate its broadcast with ads, so much so that 10 minutes of programming would be accompanied by 5 minutes of TVCs.

This strategy not only imparts negative brand preference to the brands being shown in the ad break, (provided if anyone is watching the ads at all) but also erodes the brand equity of the channel itself. But when it comes to Pakistan cricket matches, this strategy is criminal as far as the Pakistani consumer is concerned.

And this strategy is not going to change anytime soon, unless there’s a furious backlash from the consumer. Reason being because of the herd mentality, brands are not going to back off from placing their ad on a spot which is ultra prime, and Geo is not going to reduce the frequency or the length of the ads for obvious financial reasons. Everyone is focused on the short-term; no one gives two hoots about the long-term consequences. If all these hot-shots revise their branding basics, they would realize that brand awareness does not equal brand preference.

Does anyone remember Tele-Fun? Does it still exist? I can still remember almost the entire number sung in a jingle- ‘0900-78601’. Did I get it right? Even if it is still hanging on, has it been able to recover even 10% of the fortune it spent on the launch?

So, did I try it? Nope. Was I even tempted to have a go at it? No. But I do remember the jingle and the visuals and what it was all about. How many consumers were there like me? Can’t say. All I know is not a single acquaintance of mine tried it out. Do you know anyone who did?

So, what happened to it? Did it make it? Where is it now?  Was all the investment for raising brand awareness worth it? Did it convert into brand preference?

Any brand aiming to get a foot-hold in the mind of the consumer for the long-term should seriously ask itself these questions.  A brand is not built in a day. But it can go down the drain pretty soon. 

Related posts:

1. Aaj Groping For ‘The’ Brand Power To Dethrone Geo TV I : THE DILEMMA ‘Don’t you think that people today are more program loyal...
2. Aaj Groping For ‘The’ Brand Power To Dethrone Geo TV II: FLASHBACK Let’s see how the television industry in Pakistan has evolved...
3. Aaj TV Groping For ‘The’ Brand Power To Dethrone Geo TV III: BRANDING STRATEGIES The questions that arise are, why can’t Aaj compete with...